By now, readers
will realize that gravitation is a push, not a pull. That is not, of course,
what Newton is known for. He always gets blamed by indeterminists as their “attraction
man” or the guy who proposed “action-at-a-distance.” He is also used as the man
who said “hypotheses non fingo” (I propose no hypotheses). Nevertheless, Newton
is known for plenty of hypotheses, with his mathematical explanation of
gravitation being particularly hypothesis-laden. We saw in a previous post that
Newton actually proposed a push theory (http://thescientificworldview.blogspot.com/2012/05/neomechanical-gravitation-theory.html).
Thanks to astute reader Ron Davis, who just sent me these quotes from Newton,
which state his position on attraction:
DEFINITION VIII
..."I likewise call attractions and impulses, in the same sense,
accelerative, and motive; and use the words attraction, impulse, or propensity
of any sort towards a center, promiscuously, and indifferently, one for
another; considering those forces not physically, but mathematically; wherefore
the reader is not to imagine that by those words I anywhere take upon me to
define the kind, or the manner of any action, the causes or the physical reason
thereof, or that I attribute forces, in a true and physical sense, to certain
centres (which are only mathematical points); when at any time I happen to
speak of centres as attracting, or as endued with attractive
powers." From direct Latin to English translation of Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy: Sir Isaac Newton
SECTION
XI
THE MOTIONS
OF BODIES TENDING TO EACH OTHER WITH CENTRIPETAL FORCES
"I have hitherto been treating of the attractions of bodies towards an
immovable centre; though very probably there is no such thing existent in
nature. For attractions are made towards bodies, and the actions of the
bodies attracted and attracting are always reciprocal and equal by Law III; so
that if their are two bodies, neither the attracted not the attracting body is
truly at rest, but both (by Cor., IV of the Laws of Motion), being as it
were mutually attracted, revolve about a common centre of gravity. And if
there be more bodies, which either are attracted by one body, which is
attracted by them again, or which all attract each other mutually, these bodies
will be so moved among themselves, that their common centre of gravity will
either be at rest, or move uniformly forwards in a right line. I
shall therefore at present go on to treat of the motion of bodies attracting
each other; considering the centripetal forces attractions; though perhaps in a
physical strictness they may be more truly be called impulses. But these
Propositions are to be considered as purely mathematical; and therefore, laying
aside all physical considerations, I make use of a familiar way of speaking, to
make myself the more easily understood by a mathematical reader."
The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Newton.
Although his
confusion is reflected in his ambivalence and over-worked erudition, Newton
does not really come down on the side of attraction. This is despite his mystifying
“centripetal impulse” comment. So why do most folks and most
regressive physicists cherry-pick Newton in favour attraction? Attraction is
consupponible with a slew of indeterministic assumptions. The “centripetal
impulse” is akin to freewill and the view that humans are not subject to the Principle
of Least Action” of mechanics. You could go through "The Ten Assumptions
of Science," finding that each of them contradicts the hypothesis of attraction.
It is nice to know that Newton really didn’t believe it himself.
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